Get The Word Out On Your Home Business

Are you ready for a year of guerrilla marketing?

Podcasts
Never before has the online community had such an opportunity to reach its audience offline. On top of that, the spammers and hackers haven't yet found a way to infiltrate podcasting. (They probably will, but not like they've done with e-mail.)

Podcasts, like any information you put out, should be of interest and value to your target market. What do they need to help their businesses or their personal lives? What solutions do you have that they would like to hear more about? These are the things people find interesting in podcasts. A once-a-month delivery promoted through all your other marketing channels will give a real synergistic boost to your marketing.
Blogs
There are 100 times more blogs than there were three years ago, according Sifry's Alerts' August post on the State of the Blogosphere. At first, it was only the most tech-savvy businesses that had blogs. Now blogging is on the increase with all types of businesses because it's a cost-effective way to create marketing buzz and communities of support.

Blogging is like having a conversation with your target market. It also provides an interactive forum for your target market to talk back to you. And a blog done in conjunction with your website gives you one more way to reach your prospects.

The best part is, many blog programs allow you to set everything up yourself with little or no technical know-how. If you're not sure you'll be able to support a blog on your own, contribute to someone else's. This'll help you gain exposure and position you as an expert in your field.

Online Advertising
Ad dollars are continuing to shift to the internet and will continue to do so as new opportunities such as video open up. Online ad spending increases have been driven by the growing ability to measure campaigns effectively and a relatively high ROI. As a result, for many businesses, the question isn't whether to advertise online or even where or when, but rather how to stretch every dollar spent.

For the everyday entrepreneur and guerrilla marketer, this translates into a focused pay-per-click campaign on Yahoo! or Google AdWords. You can focus on a particular target market searching particular keywords and test your campaign instantly, all for fewer dollars than the old mass-market banner ads and certainly for a lot less than the cost of print ads.

Expanding to Global Markets
Borders are being removed in the business world because international labor rates and talent levels make location irrelevant on the Internet. No longer is going global just for large corporations; Sally’s e-commerce bead shop that's operating from a home office can now do business in as many countries as have Internet access.

For the aggressive entrepreneur, marketing globally is done mostly online. Using pay-per-click campaigns, a focused opt-in e-mail campaign or other traffic-generation techniques, a local entrepreneur can easily reach a global market.

The Internet has also greatly reduced language barriers. A lot of e-commerce is done in English, so there's not necessarily a huge need to translate. However, translated websites do open up new opportunities.

Expanding to global markets can be done with your e-commerce website or as an affiliate of the many thousands of retail portals available online, like Amazon.com and eBay.

Direct Marketing
No longer are awareness ads or even branding ads generating enough results to justify their use. Today's consumers want to know what’s in it for them. They want a deal, a discount or something special. These all have implications for increased direct marketing. In addition, with all the technology available to us for managing databases, target markets can be more tightly defined, segregated, sorted, compiled and marketed to, providing a higher return to those employing direct marketing.

How Do You Look Online?

Today on the Web, there are literally thousands of reviews on small businesses that range from restaurants to health spas, retail stores, and real estate agents. More and more consumers are searching for positive referrals before they use a product or service. To take advantage of this growing trend, you need to get the word out about what your business does and utilize your existing customers.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Make sure you're listed. Get your business listed in major search engines and the online directories, such as maps.google.com, local.yahoo.com, city.ask.com, local.live.com, cityguide.aol.com, and citysearch.com. In most cases, getting your business listed is as simple as filling out a free online form.

• Understand your buzz. Determine what others are saying about your business. Start by going online to a search engine and searching on your business name.

• Spread the word. Create your own buzz by encouraging your customers to go online and write positive reviews about your business and service. Depending on the business, consumers can post reviews on sites like InsiderPages, Yahoo Local, and CitySearch. Don't sit back waiting for others to do it for you. Market yourself through your satisfied customers.

What Is Podcasting?

Podcasting is a simple way for us to distribute MP3 files and for you to receive them. By subscribing to our podcast using a podcast reader, you'll receive automatic updates of our new shows. Podcasting's initial appeal was to allow individuals to distribute their own "radio shows," but the system quickly became used in a wide variety of other ways, including distribution of school lessons, official and unofficial audio tours of museums, conference meeting alerts and updates, and by police departments to distribute public safety messages.

I've never used podcasts for marketing but I know that all the "BIG" dogs are doing it. They're relatively easy way to get friendly with your prospects.

Want to listen to your favorite radio shows and audio and video programs anytime? The iTunes Store offers tens of thousands of podcasts, from both big names and independent creators.

Marketing Planning

Provided By Know This Marketing

For marketers planning is an essential task that must be continually undertaken. As we will see, shifting market conditions, including changing customer needs and competitive threats, almost always insure that what worked in the past will not work in the future, thus requiring revisions in how a product is marketed. Marketing planning is also important since it is often a prerequisite for obtaining funding whether one is a marketer in a large corporation seeking additional money for his or her department or is part of a small start up company looking for initial funding.

Who Is Stephen Pierce?

A young man hanging with the wrong crowd, Stephen Pierce wanted desperately to make his break in the world with every “next big thing” advertised in the back of magazines. After numerous failed attempts and hitting bottom after being shot and left bleeding in the street, Pierce studied and equipped himself with a new mindset for business that today has made him one of the most successful Internet marketers, marketing consultants and optimization strategists in the country. I have used many of Stephens' ideas in my home business marketing. The advantage of using his information is seeing marketing for what it really is, simple and to the point.

Marketing Method For Your Home-Based Business

Part of running a successful business is its growth. Home-based businesses are no exception. In fact, it can be even more important if you are just starting out or lack a potential client base. The key to growing a business is marketing.
Marketing is how you connect with individuals who may become customers or clients and includes methods such as affiliate programs, newsletters, trade shows, web sites, brochures, advertising, and more. The potential marketing methods available are almost limitless in scope and deciding on an approach may seem daunting, but a little preliminary effort can help you narrow down the field of options and help you make the best choices for your business.

–Determine Targeted Audience
–Set a Budget
–Evaluate Marketing Methods

Marketing Your Home-Based Business on the Internet

The Internet has opened up a whole new world of advertising and marketing for home-based businesses. Instead of having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on expensive print campaigns or mailings, you can now reach a global audience on a shoestring budget. Here are some of the popular and cost-effective ways that you can advertise your home-based business on the Internet.
Internet advertising can be broken down into three main categories:

1. Cost-per-click, where you only pay for actual clicks or leads for your advertising.

2. Cost-per-impression, often referred to as cost-per-thousand impressions or CPM, where you purchase a set amount of views for your ad.

3. Set-price advertising, where you can purchase a specific amount of advertising for a given length of time.

Cost-per-click advertising offers small business owners great value for their advertising dollar. There are several sites that offer the ability to pay only when customers click on your ads.
Google AdWords is one of the most popular advertising venues for small businesses. With the AdWords program, you bid on keywords related to your business, and your text ad is displayed when Google users search for that term. You pay only when a user clicks on your ad, and the cost per click varies according to the popularity of the keywords you select. Google AdWords does not require a minimum purchase, and you can easily spend less than $25 for a successful advertising campaign by using AdWords properly.

5 Marketing Tools for Home-Based Businesses

Because a home-based business doesn’t have a storefront for passers-by to notice and no opportunity to generate walk-in business, home-based businesses need marketing other types of businesses, not less.
Not marketing your home-based business will almost certainly doom it to failure.


1. Direct mail. still a cost-effective way to advertise in many industries.

2. Voice mail. Even the outgoing message on your answering machine or voice mail system can help promote your business when utilized correctly.

3. Press releases. The only thing better than cheap publicity is free publicity, and well-timed, professional press releases can result in just that.

4. Referrals. Referrals are probably the single best way to find new customers. If you do something well, chances are people are going to talk about it.

5. Radio interviews. If you can speak knowledgeably about your product or service and tie it in well with current events, radio interviews are a great way to reach a wide audience and improve your customer base.

Think Like an Entrepreneur

Sixty percent of all Americans are dreaming about starting their own businesses. Why? What's their motivation? I recently heard some fascinating answers to that question while I was listening to recorded transcripts from The Entrepreneur's Success Codes, a Trump University course that's taught by Jeff Burrows. In those transcripts, a group of Trump University students - all successful entrepreneurs - answered Jeff's question, "Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?" Let's take a closer look at the reasons they gave:

Motivation #1: An unstoppable passion for the work itself. It could be making real estate investments, restoring old cars or designing computer systems for businesses. As one student in The Entrepreneur's Success Codes class said, "I loved my work so much, I couldn't not do it."

Motivation #2: A drive to help others. It might be a desire to help other people be healthier, or more successful, or richer, or more beautiful. One student said that her longing to help people started after she recovered from a serious accident.

Motivation #3: The need for freedom. One class member said that after working in rigid corporations for years, the desire to control his own work took over his life.

Motivation #4: A hunger for challenge. For some entrepreneurs, the greatest motivator is the challenge of starting a business itself. Other concerns are secondary.

Motivation #5: Security. One entrepreneur said he started his own company because he hated working for companies where he could get laid off at any time. Of course, starting a company is risky. New companies fail. But despite those risks, running his own company put him in control of his own destiny."
**This article taken from Trump University.

Web tips for entrepreneurs

I know first hand that starting a home business has it's challenges. This article will come in handy for anyone in need of a business website. Bravenet, Freewebs, and Hitcounter offer free website hosting.

What Is Guerrilla Marketing Anyway?

If you know working smarter not harder than Jay Conrad Levinson is your man. I've adapted the theory of working smarter so I can spend more time with my family. There's plenty of opportunities in the "work smarter" industry. Guerrilla Marketing is designed for small businesses based on human psychology and the way people think and react vs. judgment and guesswork. For more on this Click Here.

Are YOU Ahead of the Curve?

Extraordinary result don't happen by sitting on your butt watching TV. Yet when it comes to marketing, many growing businesses remain buried in the pack, going from year to year with the same minor market share. After all, with so much “me too” marketing out there, it’s easy to consider mediocre marketing as a game plan.
But if you look to the standouts—the front-runners in just about every market niche—you’ll see that their marketing strategies and campaigns are anything but ordinary.
To compete on their level, you’ll need to be bold and approach marketing with an altered mind-set. Originality, improvisation, change and values are my top 4. Stephen Pierce will get you on the right mindset path your business has been craving.

First Impressions Theatres

Indulge yourself in exciting big screen thrills and do it in style.
They come in a variety of colors and sizes. {This one is my favorite}
Only other things needed is a big popcorn maker.

Nobody loves to watch movies at home as much as my fiance and I. This is definitely on my goal card.

I'm very easy to please.....just get me the best of everything.

First Impressions Theme Theatres

Why Starting a Business Remains the Path to Success

The truth is...it's the best time to be entrepreneurial.

"Secrets of the Self-Made" an interactive multi-media article on Forbes.com, offers a revealing glimpse into the minds of some of America's entrepreneurial billionaires.

The crazy thing is most of these entrepreneurs were average people. They had average jobs with less than suitable pay.

Why start your own business?

For most it's money, time and freedom.

How far will my salary go in another city?

Cost of living comparison
If you ever wondered how far your salary will carry you in another state, then here's how you can figure it out.

Big Blog News

It's crazy how blogging is everywhere! I went to the supermarket the other day and over the load speaker was a message regarding the A&P Blog. So everyone is finally catching on. It's a great way to get your word out and cause traffic to YOU. Blogospere is a good start for ideas and for blogs worth reading. A business associate directed me to blogging and since my business has benefited ten fold. Join the list at Live Journal to get your blog rolling.
List of blog communities for getting started:

1. Blogger
2. Live Journal
3. Xanga
4. Grey Matter
5. Word Press

More for you

This site is priceless.

I found tons of information on the internet, but nothing as relevant. I wasn't to resourceful on the internet or marketing, but the transition came when I decided to put the pedal to the metal. I hope any and all my posts make your life easier. Cheers!

http://www.akamarketing.com